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Hundreds of collisions, flight delays as massive snow falls on GTA

Close to 100 flights in and out of Pearson scheduled for Monday have been cancelled or delayed.

Traffic slows to a crawl on Dixie Rd. in Mississauga Sunday during the GTA's first major snowfall. (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

By Sophie van BastelaerStaff Reporter

Mon., Dec. 12, 2016

Nearly 500 collisions have been reported in 24 hours in and around the GTA after the area’s first big snowfall, said the Ontario Provincial Police.

The winter weather caused flight cancellations and treacherous driving conditions across the region. TTC commuters didn’t fare much better, with a series of three subway closures causing nightmarish delays on the subway line downtown.

“It’s been one of those mornings,” said OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.

Close to 100 flights in and out of Pearson scheduled for Monday were cancelled or delayed. Pearson is advising travellers to check on their flights before leaving home. Billy Bishop is also warning passengers to check their flight status.

Meanwhile, calls about car accidents continue to roll in, Schmidt says. Most are single vehicles that have gone into ditches or slipped on the on or off ramps on the highways.

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“There’s still a lot of slush, snow, and ice on the roads,” says OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt, cautioning safe driving. “Plows got the highway cleared up for the most part, but we need everyone to be mindful of the work being done.”

All lanes of Hwy. 410 southbound at Hwy. 401 were re-opened at around 10:30 a.m. They were closed for several hours, including during the morning rush hour, after a transport truck crashed through a guardrail around 3 a.m.

School buses in TDSB and TCDSB are running, but there may be delays depending on local conditions. The Halton Catholic DSB says transportation is cancelled for all schools in Zone 3 (Halton Hills).

Durham District School Board says that transportation for schools in Zones 1, 2, 3, as well as in North, West and Central Simcoe County, has been cancelled due to inclement weather.

York and Peel District School Boards say buses are running but delays are expected.

While a snowfall warning Environment Canada issued on Sunday has ended, the City of Toronto suggests Torontonians consider postponing non-essential travel and taking public transit when possible. Local road plowing began at approximately 1 a.m. and will continue throughout the day.

Schmidt says drivers should try not to pass plows or salting trucks and that everyone give themselves extra time to get where they’re going.

“The fact that we’ve had so many crashes is a testament to how unsafe the roads still are,” he said.

Up to 15 cm of snow was predicted to fall by early Monday morning; Environment Canada says Toronto got 13.8 cm.

Environment Canada also predicts that more snow is on the way later this week, and Toronto can expect temperatures hovering between -1 C to -6 C from Tuesday to Saturday.

The storm system was expected to continue moving east through the day, laying down a snow blanket in eastern Ontario and Quebec before moving into Atlantic Canada where weather alerts were issued in all four provinces over the weekend.

Parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick could get up to 20 cm of snow before the end of today and snow was expected to begin falling on Newfoundland’s south coast tonight, then spread to the rest of the province by Tuesday morning.

British Columbia got a blast of winter over the weekend, with snow and unusually nippy temperatures, while across the Prairies it’s cold — deep freeze cold — with highs this week in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and also northern Ontario forecast to range from about -13 C to a biting -25 C.

With files from Emma McIntosh, Alina Bykova and Salmaan Farooqui and Canadian Press

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